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2017 Contributors

Rob Carney is the author of four previous books of poems, most recently 88 Maps (Lost Horse Press, 2015), which was named a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, as well as the forthcoming collection The Book of Sharks (Black Lawrence Press). In 2014 he received the Robinson Jeffers/Tor House Foundation Award for Poetry. His work has appeared previously in The Poet’s Billow (2015), as well as Cave Wall, Columbia Journal, Sugar House Review, and many others, and he writes a regularly featured series called “Old Roads, New Stories” for Terrain: A Journal of the Built and Natural Environments. He lives in Salt Lake City.

Jen Karetnick is the author of three full-length poetry collections, most recently The Treasures That Prevail (Whitepoint Press, September 2016), finalist for the 2017 Poetry Society of Virginia Book Prize. The winner of the 2017 Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest, the 2016 Romeo Lemay Poetry Prize and the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Prize, she has work appearing or forthcoming in Crab Creek Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Evansville Review, Guernica, The Missouri Review, One, Painted Bride Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse Daily and Waxwing Literary Magazine. She is co-founder/co-director for the not-for-profit organization, SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers in Miami).

Kurt Luchs has poems published or forthcoming in Into the Void, Triggerfish Critical Review, Roanoke Review, and Antiphon, among others. He founded the literary humor site TheBigJewel.com, and has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as for television (Politically Incorrect and the Late Late Show) and radio (American Comedy Network). In fall 2017 Sagging Meniscus Press is publishing his humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny). He lives in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, where he manages a group of radio stations. More of his work, both poetry and humor, can be found at kurtluchs.com.

Fran Markover lives in Ithaca, NY where she works as a psychotherapist. Her poems have been published in journals including Able Muse, Rattle, Calyx, Karamu, Earth’s Daughters, Cider Press Review, Spillway. Recent awards include a Pushcart nomination and a poetry residency at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. Her chapbook, History’s Trail, is published by Finishing Line Press.

Emily Rosello Mercurio is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Cornell University, where she also teaches composition and has served as assistant editor for EPOCH Magazine. Her work has appeared in Really System and Plain China.Karla Linn Merrifield, a nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, has had ~600 poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 12 books to her credit, the newest of which is Bunchberries, More Poems of Canada, a sequel to Godwit:Poems of Canada (FootHills), which received the Eiseman Award for Poetry. She is assistant editor and poetry book reviewer for The Centrifugal Eye, a member of the board of directors of Just Poets (Rochester, NY), and a member of the Florida State Poetry Society, and The Author’s Guild.She is currently at work on three manuscripts and seeking a home for The Comfort of Commas, a quirky chapbook that pays tribute to punctuation. Visit her woefully outdated blog, Vagabond Poet, at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com. Photo by Catherine Underhill Fitzpatrick.

Jennifer A. Reimer, lecturer in the English department at San Jose State University this fall, received her PhD in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2011, and her MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco in 2005. She is the 2011 winner of the American Studies Association’s Gloria E. Anzaldúa Award and currently serves on the ASA’s International Committee. Jennifer’s scholarly work has appeared in Western American Literature, ARIEL (A Review of International English Literature), The Journal of Popular Music Studies,Latino Studies, Intervalla and The Journal of Transnational American Studies. Her research highlights the intersection of 20th and 21st century literary-cultural productions and the global material realities out of which they are created and circulated. The U-S Mexico border as a critical site in the racial past, present and future of the Americas is important to Jennifer’s scholarship. Her current manuscript project, Forms of Migration: Memory, Movement & Literary Form in the 21st Century asks: what literary forms emerge from transnational im/migrant texts and how are they negotiated and received? Her first prose poetry book, The Rainy Season Diaries, was released in 2013. The Turkish translations of The Rainy Season Diaries was released in 2017 by Şiirden Press (Istanbul). Her poems have published in numerous journals. Her poem, “A Week After the Failed Military Coup” was selected as Finalist for the 2017 Bermuda Triangle Poetry Prize. She is the co-founder and co-editor of Achiote Press. After 5 years living overseas, Jennifer now lives in El Cerrito, CA.James Roach

I’ve been writing for years but only in the past few have I realized my true joy for it. I’m originally from the midwest and have been living in the Pacific Northwest for 14 years. I’m inspired by the weather, heartbreak, beauty, ugliness, and my own recovery from alcoholism. For more of my writing, please visit my website: impatienthands.wordpress.com

Mary Rood is a former preschool and second grade teacher for the San Antonio Independent School District in Texas. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Her work has appeared in the San Diego Poetry Annual 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, and 2017-18.

Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Enzagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called andthe co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.

Laura Shovan is former editor of Little Patuxent Review. Her chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, won the inaugural Harriss Poetry Prize. Laura edited Life in Me Like Grass on Fire: Love Poems and co-edited Voices Fly: An Anthology of Exercises and Poems from the Maryland State Arts Council Artists-in-Residence Program, for which she teaches. The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, her award-winning children’s novel-in-verse, is about students protesting the closing of their school.

Marjorie Stelmach is the author of five volumes of poetry, most recently, Falter (Cascade Books, 2017). Previous books include Without Angels (Mayapple), A History of Disappearance and Bent upon Light (Tampa).Recent work has appeared in Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Gettysburg Review, Image, Iowa Review, New Letters, and others. She is the 2016 recipient of the Chad Walsh Award from the Beloit Poetry Journal.

Alexandra Umlas lives in Huntington Beach, CA with her husband and two daughters. She is currently an MFA student at California State University, Long Beach.

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, raised in Essex County, New Jersey, Poetry Reader for Muzzle Magazine, and author ofMemories of an Old World (Wilde Press, 2016), Julio Cesar Villegas is the writer that your abuelos warned you about. His scriptures can be found in Rigorous Mag, Subprimal Poetry Art, Waccamaw, Into The Void, as well as the inescapable mouth of the abyss. Puerto Rico Se Levanta.